Subject: What's this junior's talent?

James Wang, my junior who will graduate tonight, rose 4 levels (weak to solid) in 14 weeks. So overall we could say his talent is 14 weeks divided by 4 = 3.5 weeks. Right?

But....his 4 level rise actually was achieved in the first 8 weeks I had him. I thought I had a live one with 8/4 = 2 week talent!! He then fiddled up and down in the final 6 weeks with no improvement over the +4 levels, so his talent did not increase (or decrease) in the last 6 weeks.

So is it fair to say that his talent can be assessed as the overall average of 3.5 weeks or shouldn't that be qualified in some way because the junior coach obviously didn't think much of him for the last 6 weeks?

I'm confused with this new junior system. Apparent super-talents turn into mush or vice versa on the whim of an inconsistent coach. My coach is Magical btw.

How is everyone else assessing their junior players' talent?

To me talent is less an exact number these days. It is just plain wishy-washy because you cant know with any certainty. Even my outstanding youth, who played in every junior game for my team, dropped from incredible just this week.

Ah yes, and then there's those junior games. I don't think they provide any more info. on whether a junior is talented or not. Each junior will play according to his skill level at the moment. I've tried guys at ATT, MID, and DEF and they play about the same in each position. By far the most important thing is whether they have reached Adequate, Solid, Excellent or whatever. And man, these games are painful to watch!!

I really wish they had left the junior system alone. At least you recognize no-talents if they hadn't popped after 6 or 7 weeks and fire them without a second thought.

End of whinge!! I never collected much talent with the old system either :(

wow, I have the total opposite opinion

I was able to get a pretty good read on the skills of my two most talented youths early and adjust my long term training plans ahead of time

I also haven't wasted training spots on guys who were going to come out as 20 year olds - unless they had lots of weeks and demonstrated some capacity to improve - even then I have less youths and better quality now than I did under the old system

well, maybe I've just been unlucky with the junior system from the word go. I note that you were high in the first junior 'league' (top?) and I was close to the bottom! I've had a net loss of several million $ with magical coach and ~20 places. I never seem to get anything worth selling for much or for keeping to train. James Wang did not sell for $5 and was shot at dawn. I shut my school down after my first 6 seasons and I think I'll soon be doing the same with this second shot at it if I don't see any light at the end of the tunnel!

I'll just have to try to compete with my 'all alien' squad. It's unfortunate - I really would like to have some promising young Canadians, but it just doesn't seem to happen at my club.

It sure has worked for you tho. I envy your all Canadian squad with good foundation of youth.